With less than a month left before the players log off, the World Championship had begun in full swing, as always. Professional players were fighting tooth and nail for their rankings, while ordinary players were either watching the matches or enjoying the final remnants of version 3.0.
Meanwhile, in a corner they could not see, construction of the Mothership on Arc Light One had already passed eighty percent completion.
This progress was inseparable from the resources and technical support of Terra's nations.
When Felix first calmly presented the plan for the Infinity-class Exploration Mothership to the high-ranking officials of the various countries, many of them felt as though they were reading a heavenly scripture. It was not until Felix personally showed them the research results and the real spacecraft that they realized Kazdel was serious.
And so, resources and technical personnel began pouring into Felix's side.
In return, they received Felix's promise: before long, they would head toward a brand-new world, a brand-new universe, and brand-new planets, and all nations would move under Kazdel's banner.
On that day, the Terran Union was formally established.
The nations of Terra, led by Kazdel, finally gathered together under one framework. Although many of them had once been enemies, no one said much when faced with matters of principle. With the possibility of journeying into a new universe before them, no one wanted to create unnecessary conflict or do anything that might damage unity.
That did not mean there were no disputes.
There were still countless meetings and arguments over territorial boundaries between nations. For example, the conflicts among Kazimierz, Victoria, and Ursus could not possibly be resolved in a day or two. Lands had been fought over again and again, and no final conclusion had been reached. Felix was too lazy to involve himself in their endless quarrels. In an era where cold weapons were gradually being phased out, firearms and warships had already become dominant. If war broke out, the dead would no longer be just the people of one city.
As for the territory surrounding Kazdel, it had always been considered unclaimed land. In the eyes of other nations, it was merely a region prone to natural disasters, not worth occupying. Naturally, no one objected to Kazdel claiming it.
Now, however, natural-disaster suppression technology already existed. Cities could be built even in the harshest environments.
Of course, Felix was not some kind of masochist. The city planners had already marked out several empty tracts of land they considered suitable for constructing brand-new mobile cities. After Felix approved the proposal, he raised the expansion of Kazdel's territory at the joint council. No one objected. In truth, there was no reason to object. The countries bordering Kazdel were Yan and Laterano, and Felix's relationship with both the Emperor and the Pope was so close that the matter hardly seemed worth discussing. Expanding a little bit into land no one had wanted anyway was not a problem.
Once the territorial issue was settled, Felix attended another joint meeting, this time with Kal'tsit.
This time, Kal'tsit stood at the center as the primary speaker, explaining the current state of the Infected and the future of their rights as Terrans. Everyone present knew perfectly well how each nation had treated the Infected in the past, and the Emperor of Ursus, appearing through the remote link, felt as though countless gazes were boring into his image.
Nowadays, infection was no longer a terminal sentence.
Although Oripathy was still contagious, it no longer carried the same certainty of death as before. The Infected were Terrans too. With suppressive medicine, they could gradually return to normal life. Even those with mild symptoms could, through resistance drugs, recover their health within a relatively short time.
Under such circumstances, there was no longer any need to continue suppressing the Infected.
In fact, the Infected now possessed one clear advantage over healthy Terrans: they could cast Originium Arts without relying on staves.
Whether in daily life or in battle, once the threat of death had been removed, the Infected suddenly realized something astonishing: if they were no longer dying from Oripathy, then being able to cast Arts freely without a staff was actually an incredible gift.
That realization gradually changed the way the Infected saw themselves. They could use Originium Arts without external tools, and they would not die from doing so. That alone made their value impossible to ignore.
Some scientists had even voluntarily infected themselves in the name of research, then later recovered successfully through medication. Even so, most people still retained an instinctive fear of Oripathy, and changing that perception among the public would require a great deal of time.
At the meeting, Yan quietly revealed that it had already assembled a unit of Originium warriors, a force one thousand strong. Every one of them had volunteered to become infected.
In simulation exercises, they completely annihilated one of Yan's own city defense army, using overwhelming Originium Arts to crush them outright.
After the exercise, the infected warriors voluntarily injected themselves with suppressive medicine. The treatment ensured they would not deteriorate further, though it did not fully cure them.
This daring move by Yan immediately put the other nations on edge.
After all, no one wanted to fall behind in the future distribution of power and spoils. As a result, every country began quietly preparing its own corps of infected warriors while also trying, at least outwardly, to improve the treatment of the Infected.
At the same time, Yan and Kazdel began tacitly coordinating a propaganda campaign centered on the image of the infected warrior.
Although the Terran Union had only just been established, only a handful of powers within it could truly be called the strongest: Kazdel, Ursus, Yan, United Kingdom of Victoria and Tara, Leithanien, Columbia, and Aegir. The other nations either lacked sufficient industrial capacity or simply did not possess any especially remarkable technological strengths. They knew they had already fallen behind, and with the era of interstellar exploration approaching, the only thing they could do was cling tightly to the coattails of the Alliance Leader, Felix.
The division of the cake was an incredibly cruel reality, and Alliance Leader Felix was the one personally holding the knife. As civilization moved into the stars, a planet could only have one voice, and now, that voice was Felix's.
The leaders of all nations understood Felix's position and their own roles in the future, yet none of them objected. The fact that they were still allowed to retain a degree of autonomy was already enough to make them grateful.
The first Infinity-class mothership under the Mothership Project was named Hope, Infinity Hope.
This vessel, carrying Terra's future and its hope, could accommodate a total of 300,000 people. And for those 300,000 places, the nations of Terra were already scrambling fiercely to secure a share.
Felix's plan was simple.
Of those 300,000, 200,000 would be civilian immigrants bound for another star system, while the remaining 100,000 would be crew members, technical personnel, scientists, and researchers. However, even the immigrants had conditions attached: they had to be people who had made meaningful contributions in some field or conducted valuable research in a specific area.
To put it simply, ordinary Terrans could not become residents of the Hope.
Graduate students and doctoral researchers, however, could.
This phase of the mission meant taking away a large number of elite talents. The number sounded huge, around 200,000 people, but once divided among all the nations, each country would receive only tens of thousands of spots at most. At first, some of the smaller nations had been reluctant to let go of their talented people. After all, who could say with certainty that Hope's voyage would truly succeed? If Felix took away all of their best minds and then never returned, would that not doom them?
But when they saw powers like Yan, United Kingdom, and Ursus scrambling to send their own talents to Felix, they were completely stunned and no longer knew what to think.
Those smaller nations did not know the truth, but the leaders of the major powers who had closer ties with Felix did.
They knew that more than one planet orbited Talos-II. Two months earlier, several small spacecraft had already landed successfully on those planets and established preliminary outposts.
With Felix as Alliance Leader, the future of the Terran Union would be unbelievably bright.
Naturally, the major powers mentioned above secured the best positions first: scientists from Columbia and Aegir, engineers and industrial experts from United Kingdom, Ursus, and Yan, and tower spires from Leithanien. These great powers filled the available places to the brim, leaving the smaller countries ashamed of their earlier hesitation.
At last, the meeting came to an end, and Felix shut down the communication interface.
Most of the crew positions aboard Hope had already been allocated. Apart from Kazdel's own share, the remaining immigrant places were left for the other countries to decide among themselves. Although Felix had every right to object, he saw no reason to. He could leave such trivial matters to them.
With only one month left before the players would log off, Felix glanced at the forum posts, then looked at the intense matches of the World Championship, wondering what it would feel like to meet the players again someday.
Then Felix closed the forum, pushed open the door, and, accompanied by Theresa, passed through the Stargate to Talos-II.
The outer hull of Hope was now complete, but the internal structure and instruments still required repeated checks and inspections. The two of them arrived at the high-energy physics laboratory, where Kristen was conducting one engine test after another.
Before Hope's launch, other small spacecraft had already entered the universe on short-term flights. After discovering the planets around Talos-II, Felix named them Talos-I and Talos-III. The intelligent units of Tomorrow's Development had already established their main bases there, and hundreds of scientists had moved in, primarily to explore the planets and identify new resources.
The internal layout of Hope was similar to that of Venus. However, because it would house hundreds of thousands of people, Felix adopted the hibernation pod technology of the previous civilization. His first destination would be Earth. During the journey, only the Clevers would remain active aboard the ship to carry out maintenance and repairs. Everyone else, including Felix himself, would spend most of the voyage in cryogenic stasis inside hibernation pods.
Those who would leave Talos-II with him for Earth would include not only the members of his harem, but also three legions in addition to the Emperor's Children.
Felix was not worried that taking those three legions would significantly weaken Kazdel's strength. Ever since Theresis had graduated from the Imperial Naval Academy with perfect marks, Felix had felt confident enough to entrust the future of Terra and Kazdel to him. Even if Felix were absent from Terra for a period of time in the future, Theresis would still be capable of maintaining peace between Kazdel and the rest of Terra.
Among the many royal courts of Kazdel, Felix intended to bring only the Lich King.
This old scholar, who lived for research, had immediately packed his bags and moved into the dormitories of Talos-II as soon as he heard that they would be heading to a new world. He even declared that he would bring his apprentice, Ermengarde, aboard Hope as well.
Among the senior members of Tomorrow's Development, Anthony and Feist chose to leave with Felix. The two veterans, Hellagur and Patriot, chose to remain behind. They were old, and they wished to stay in their homeland to watch the younger generation grow. Even though Neon and Yelena chose to depart with Felix, they entrusted their daughters to him without hesitation.
As for Rhodes Island Pharmaceuticals, Kal'tsit, as both doctor and scientist, chose to leave with Felix, while the Doctor and Amiya temporarily remained behind to take charge of Rhodes Island's remaining affairs. They all understood that this was not a final farewell, only a temporary parting. In the future, Terra would enter the interstellar age, and Rhodes Island Pharmaceuticals would not flourish on Terra alone.
ACE got married, but he chose to board the Venus with his wife and take up the role of Kal'tsit's bodyguard. Logos chose to stay behind and inherit the throne of the Banshee Court. Scout, Stormeye, and the other free-spirited mercenaries chose to board Hope together with ACE.
After the personnel roster was provisionally finalized, Felix traveled to Yan. This time, he was accompanied by his four wives. The purpose of the trip was naturally to resolve the matter of the Sui Beast.
The Emperor of Yan was aware of this and chose to entrust the entire matter to Felix.
Felix glanced at the masses of Seaborn hidden in the shadows, then looked at the phantom of the black dragon soul before him and smiled.
"Husband…"
Ling, Shu, Nian, and Dusk clung tightly to Felix, as if they were about to wake from a long dream. Their eyes glistened with tears, and their bodies grew paler and paler.
Felix gently kissed each of them.
"We'll see each other again soon."
Ling let out a soft laugh, and her figure vanished first, followed by Shu, who was equally reluctant to leave.
Nian held Felix tightly and refused to let go. Dusk clutched Felix's hand just as firmly. In the end, they both threw themselves into his arms, disappeared after a long kiss, and dissolved into light.
The black dragon's body became far more solid.
"The lives of my brothers and sisters are in your hands." Wang's voice was low. "The ritual cannot be stopped… At this final moment, I choose to believe in you."
After saying that, his figure vanished as well, and the sword at his waist fell to the ground with a clang.
Chongyue gave Felix an encouraging look. Ji merely smiled calmly. Yu crossed his arms and looked entirely unbothered, as if this were only a trivial matter and not worth any concern.
And yes, perhaps it really was only a minor matter.
Looking at the dragon soul before him, no, at the Sui Beast itself, Felix suddenly realized just how much he had changed. He had begun by trying to alter the fate of individuals, then moved on to the fate of entire nations.
And now, it was the future of Terra.
This time was no different.
Roar!
The enormous body of the Sui Beast filled the sky. Dark clouds swallowed the heavens, violent winds howled, and everything around them was consumed by pitch-black ink.
Felix only smiled.
From the shadows beneath his feet, azure sea creatures surged forth and tore into the Sui Beast.
Azure brilliance and ink-wash darkness blended together as the Sui Beast's roar echoed across all of Yan. Felix bent down, picked up the fallen longsword, and his body transformed into blue-gold flames that pierced straight through the core of the beast.
Blue-gold fire surged upward.
The Sui Beast fixed its gaze on Felix, and then its body turned to ash and scattered upon the earth.
The twelve phantoms gradually regained their own bodies and descended to the ground.
The dream was over, and it was time to wake.
Good night, Sui Beast.
Good morning, Sui.